Onwards
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: "You'll stay with me?" "Until the very end." Every hello ends with a goodbye, but a goodbye does not last for forever. We'll meet up again one day as we both move Onwards. Hogwarts Painting Comp #9 Percy. Percy-in-a-portrait watches over the spot where Fred died during the Battle of Hogwarts. Molly ii learns that life moves on in moving pictures.


**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Just a little headcanon of mine where from a portrait, Percy protects and watches over the spot where Fred died in the Battle of Hogwarts.  
**

Written for the HPFC Dauntless Competition "Stage One Round Two: Knife Throwing"; Hogwarts House Painting Competition "Hard: #9. Percy; Hogwarts Express; blown away; to live is to die"; Poetry Quote Bootcamp "#33"; Duct Tape Competition "Red Plaid"; Cinema Competition "Lord of the Rings" (write about a beginning); Your Favourite Hogwarts House Bootcamp [GRYFFINDOR] "34. Anywhere"; Disney Movie Plotline Competition "Lady and the Tramp" (write about someone learning something unexpected about either themselves or someone else)

It might be helpful to recall the scene in Deathly Hallows where Harry met Dumbledore in King's Cross station.

Word Count: 1,789

**Your mind conjures the electric tingle of magic in the air and the earth-shattering feeling of the world falling apart around you but for the life of you, you cannot seem to recreate the scene of when your uncle (and a bit of your father, you suppose) died.**

* * *

**Onwards**

[-]

"You never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people's lives."  
~ F Scott Fitzgerald, _Tender is the Night_.

"Life has not broken it/With parting or tears;/Death will not alter it,/It will live on" - _It Will Not Change,_ Sara Teasdale

[-]

If a Hogwarts student were to actually read their newly updated Hogwarts: A History textbook following the Second Wizarding War, perhaps they would come across the glorified heroes and the Light philosophies those heroes supported. One might stumble upon familiar last names of family friends (Potter, Weasley, Longbottom – to name a few). Or, perhaps the reader will turn to the next section, the one that has been thumbed through less, whose pages are stiff and cold, and has dark smudges marring once-Pure reputations. Or, even better, the student might be you and will have now turned to the chapter filled with turncoats both good and bad – depending on which side you were rooting for – but all who changed their minds for what they believed the greater good to be. Famous examples would be Narcissa Malfoy and Severus Snape; a not-so-famous example would be Percy Weasley.

You lean in curiously to examine the little caption and blurb dedicated to the black sheep in the ginger Weasley herd. The moving picture of Percy Ignatius Weasley is so still that it could be mistaken for a black-and-white Muggle photograph. He is standing motionless in what seems to resemble a train station – King's Cross, it looks to be. And if this is King's Cross, he must be waiting at Platform Nine and Three Quarters for the Hogwarts Express. You squint and – there it is! – a Platform Nine and Three Quarters sign hangs almost halfway out of the photograph, blowing away in and out of the picture's edge so that the letters are partially missing every now and then. But the marquee listing the train schedule is odd: the estimated time of arrival for the next train is listed as THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and the destination is ANYWHERE. Picture-Percy huffs out a soundless irritated sigh and takes a glance at a pocket watch – as if he is late for a train that is never coming, you realise.

Your eyes travel over to the captions by Percy's photograph:

[-]

**Percy Ignatius Weasley**, it reads. **22 August 1976 – 19 January 2015. Deceased husband of Audrey Isabelle Weasley (née Beauchamp); father to Molly Ginevra and Aubrielle Lucy. Former Assistant and Scribe to the Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour, and Pius Thicknesse (1994-1998); Auror for the Ministry of Magic – Department of Magical Law Enforcement (1998-2015). Originally, Weasley was a supporter of the Ministry during the time it had been infiltrated by the Dark side (1994-1998); he defected to the Light side during the Battle of Hogwarts (May 1998) after realising that Lord Voldemort had indeed risen again despite what the Ministry denied. Weasley died (age 39) in cross fire in an Auror mission in Birmingham on 19 January 2015. Title of portrait is _Blown Away_; commissioned by Weasley and painted by Luna Lovegood in 2003 for the 5 year memorial of the Battle of Hogwarts. The original oil-and-canvas is located in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the Seventh Floor across the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, near the door to the Room of Requirement.**

[-]

You slam the textbook shut, the know-it-all voice of Hermione Granger echoing through your brain (she was the one who edited and supervised the additional writing of Hogwartian history following the Second Wizarding War). You thought you were brave enough to handle reading about your father and his past mistakes, but the tears stabbing your eyes say otherwise. You sling your bookbag over one shoulder and head up the ever-changing staircases and down empty stone corridors towards the Seventh Floor. Right now you're supposed to be in Herbology with your other Third Year Gryffindors but you know that Professor Longbottom will understand your tardiness – today is the first year anniversary marking your father's death in that Auror mission against an alleged group of wanna-be Death Eaters.

There, now you see the portrait. You have walked the path leading up to this spot a copious amount of times in your three years at Hogwarts, for it is also near the Room of Requirement and you require many things, and you know the steps by heart leading to this floor. As you draw nearer to the sacred spot, you feel as if you are stepping on to holy ground. You close your eyes and make your mind blank as you enter a state of grace.

"Hi Daddy," you whisper to the figure in the portrait of _Blown Away_. "Hi, Uncle Fred," you greet the uncle you have never met, for this is the place where the soul and laughter in his eyes (so like Uncle George's, everyone tells you in regard to Uncle Fred's identical twin) was extinguished and blown away during the Battle of Hogwarts.

You step back and eye the alcove, imagining yourself in that moment. Your mind conjures the electric tingle of magic in the air and the earth-shattering feeling of the world falling apart around you but for the life of you, you cannot seem to recreate the scene of when your uncle (and a bit of your father, you suppose) died.

This spot is timeless history that has been integrated into the reconstructed Hogwarts castle following the Second Wizarding War. Like Hogwarts: A History had said, your father had asked Luna to make a magic-infused painting that would capture a bit of his soul. He then personally hung the painting up on the wall of the Seventh Floor at the Battle of Hogwart's five year memorial service. It's like a horcrux without the element of death, you think, the way Percy immortalised a bit of himself inside canvas to protect and be with Uncle Fred here, forever and always.

"Molly," the Percy-in-the-portrait says with your father's gentle cardinal songbird voice. You want to cry like an angel who has lost her wings when you hear the voice you thought you would never hear again, but you force yourself to be calm and poised in front of him. "Oh, darling, I am so _so_ proud of you. You have accomplished much more in your three years at Hogwarts than I did in seven, and I just know you are destined to do great things."

You smile weakly, throat tightening from the effort it takes to keep the tears at bay. "You're supposed to say that; you're my father."

Percy laughs and his eyes twinkle behind those all-too-familiar tortoiseshell horn-rimmed glasses. "Always the pragmatist," he shakes his head amusedly. He takes his pocket watch out of the grey sports coat he is wearing, and then his eyes flick over to the marquee. "My time is drawing closer now."

"Time for what?" you ask and look towards the marquee, too. A gust of wind comes and blows the old schedule away and replaces it with a new one that reads: ETA – TWO MINUTES. DESTINATION – ONWARD. "Daddy, where are you going?" you ask frantically because this feels much too like a final goodbye for your liking.

"Onward," he smiles sadly. "Before I leave, I want you to know something, Molly: to live is to die. And, conversely, to die is to live. Don't be scared of either life or death, love. I learnt this lesson a little too late in life but the hands of Fate forgave me after one historic day in May of 1998 when I volunteered to sacrifice myself instead of my brother in the explosion that ended up being his demise." Percy stows away his pocket watch and walks forward as much as he can to the painting's forefront. He stands close enough to touch, and you hope he cannot see what you are thinking of. At the moment, you're thinking terribly selfish thoughts that revolve around begging him to stay even though you know he will not. "Be strong and fearless, Molly," he says with eyes that shine like liquid starlight. "Dream impossible dreams. I'll always be with you here – " he taps his temple, " – and in here – " and then he taps his heart. "Love you to the moon and back," he says like he used to every night when you were little and he tucked you in bed at night after he had checked for monsters in the closet. It was his way of saying that you were safe and that there was nothing to be afraid of; now, you cannot help stop the tears from falling as a purple triple-decker Hogwarts crest emblazoned train pulls up into the painting's train station.

The conductor's door opens, and out steps a twenty-something man in a shocking purple uniform (the rest of the painting is in black-and-white, so he stood out like a sore thumb). The man has large-ish ears and quite a few pimples. He recites off a note card wearily: "Welcome to the Knight Express. Emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this evening." He pockets his note card and blinks in confusion, looking for his passenger. His eyes alight upon Percy and calls out in his thick, Cockneye accent: "Wha' choo doin' over there?"

"Saying goodbye."

"Wha' choo' sayin' goodbye for?"

"I'm moving onwards, aren't I?"

This Stan Shunpike eyes your father suspiciously and then shrugs. "Well, come on then. Let's not wait for the grass to grow."

"Oh, shove off, Shunpike," you hear a voice similar to Uncle George's – but deeper in timbre – say from inside a train compartment whose window is open. The window is too far for you to see, but you see a head of ginger hair through the glass. A firework in the shape of a W – quite like the product Uncle George sells at Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, you note in awe – fizzes out of the compartment's window. "Are you coming or what, Pinhead Prefect?" The nickname is yelled out in a fraternal teasing manner.

Percy grins upon hearing Fred's voice and steps away from the painting's edge. "That's my cue. I hope I see you soon, Molly – but not too soon," he hastily adds since he does not want to warrant you to an early death. "And remember – "

You recite along with him: "To live is to die, and to die is to live." You swear to never forget your father's last piece of advice to you.

He steps onto the train's platform and disappears inside the compartment with your Uncle. The compartment window is further lowered and two red Weasley heads lean out, wearing identical smiles of mischief.

"Goodbye!" they yell out, waving as the train pulls out of the station. "Goodbye!"

And you all went onwards in your separate directions, knowing that goodbye isn't for forever and that you will all meet up with each other again one day.

[-]


End file.
